Tell us about why you started to study a foreign language. What has been your initial motivation and why do you do it now? What have been your obstacles so far and in what ways do you take pleasure out of the things you have learned so far? Please indulge us!

I started studying Chinese because I was studying a Chinese martial art.
I switched to Japanese after visiting both China and Japan and realizing I'd rather spend more time in Japan.
There are too many obstacles to list, but I love the "aha!" moment when something complex suddenly makes sense, or when I make a connection between a cultural aspect and a linguistic aspect.

The Japanese culture is the greatest in the world! We should all study Japanese with intensive effort.

Vocabulary and kanji have been tough on me (as with everyone, I think), but I enjoy the simple grammar. There's really no excuse for complaining about Japanese grammar.

I get great pleasure from understanding simple Flash movies posted to 2ch. More complex things still confuse me, so I use a Web translator... that's bad! I should do the work myself, even if it takes longer.